Have I mentioned?

...my new favorite social network. The San Francisco garden registry. It's a Futurefarmers project and I have just posted that I have an extra asparagus crown in case anyone nearby would like it. I really hope someone does want it because I hate adopting plants just to fail them right away.

Walking without buying

An article in The New York times really struck me tonight, after a walk with my favorite man and the passing-by of a wine bar I've been wanting to try. The night is beautiful here in San Francisco—warm and cozy and a good presage to the chill that is coming. We walked by the bar because only one of us wanted to go in tonight, and now I am glad for a couple of reasons. I think I need to tuck in for the long haul on the money thing. I mean, I need to be more serious about saving money than I have ever been before.

And then for the planet it is also necessary to reduce. Maybe the wine bar will have to be saved for the really Special Occasion rather than the Passing Fancy. As Margaret Atwood said in her op-ed, now that the economy seems to be in the tank (at least for the time being) the bright side is that, "Perhaps we’ll have some breathing room — a chance to re-evaluate our goals and to take stock of our relationship to the living planet from which we derive all our nourishment, and without which debt finally won’t matter."

And finally I am glad because we have just made a good feast instead of drinking wine! Freshly shelled beans (cranberry beans and Italian butter beans both from Iacopi) were laced with olive oil and rice vinegar and sea salt, and then we kept adding more things! Carrots of all colors, a radish, golden cayenne chili (from Tierra Vegetables!!) and two kinds of green onions from two different growers (Heirloom Organics and Marin Roots Farm). And I thank also for the daily bread, which is from Full Circle in Penngrove and couldn't be more delicious.

Shooting again

I shot something for this project again. It is a tradition in the highlands that the people who help a farmer with their planting are given any leftover seeds, and in this way I received some. Lee James of Tierra Vegetables is willing to plant the seeds I was given in Perú. Mine looked a little dry and aged when I gave them to her, but she thinks a few of them look likely to sprout. They are planting them soon and they are going to call me to come film when they do.

I got a secondary story today while I was filming. A man came to visit Lee James; he had given her seeds three or four years ago, and she has been growing them for several seasons. They are called Paradiso, after his ancestor who brought the seeds over from Italy in the early 1900s; all his family recipes include this pepper. Now he only has one plant of his own, but Lee is keeping the seeds going.

Glory in genetic diversity. Hurrah for heirloom plants.